Perform 17.3 (Summer '25)

ISSUE 17.3

“Perform” Summer 2025

Cultivator

Daniel Garcia

Editors

Elizabeth Sullivan, Danae Stahlnecker

Grace Olivieri, Katherine Hypes

Katie Shiver, Virginia Graham, Samantha Hull

Designers

Jesse Garcia, Sana Chiang

Taylor DuBose, Trinh Mai

Intern Martina Ngn

Developer David E. Valdespino Jr.

Writers

Alyssarhaye Graciano, Brandon Roos

Bree Karpavage, Esther Young

Johanna Harlow, Joshua Hascall

Meghan Lee, Nikoo Parsizadeh

Samantha Hull, William E. Jeske

Yvonne Phan

Photographers

Stan Olszewski, Arabela Espinoza

Jason Leung, Ariana Siguenza

Stephanie Barajas

Publisher SVCREATES

I am excited to feature Hana Lock and Jet Martinez in this issue, both artists I have admired for a while. Yes, Jet is not from the South Bay, but he is having a solo exhibition at MACLA this summer, thus providing us the opportunity to introduce you to his beautiful work. Hana is one of the many artists I have looked to feature over the last couple of years, but the timing was always off, so I am honored to have her featured in this issue.

Also, this annual focus on the fantastic art program at the West Valley Cilker School of Art and Design gives us a look into the life of Dr. John Ulloa, who is not only the dean of Language Arts and Social Science at West Valley College but also is a lowrider and musician—demonstrating the unique ways to balance a career and creativity in our region. As usual, our 71st issue presents diverse artistic talents, lives, and cultures, from fashion to theater, photography to DJing. My hope is for you to gain an appreciation for the people, cultures, and artistic practices featured in this issue, and that you learn to understand and respect their journeys so that we may, in turn, become a stronger, more civil society—the health of a nation (and the world) has been, and always will be, in our love for our neighbors.

Enjoy,

Daniel Garcia

THE CULTIVATOR

IN THIS ISSUE

Hana Lock | Yvette Young | Chef Nicko Moulinos | Jet Martinez

To participate in CONTENT MAGAZINE: daniel@content-magazine.com Membership & sponsorship information available by contacting david@content-magazine.com

CILKER SCHOOL OF ART & DESIGN

Get a premier arts education at West Valley’s Cilker School of Art & Design. As a top transfer institution, we know what it takes to help you achieve your educational goals. With world-class art, design, and performing arts courses taught by industry experts and experienced faculty, West Valley College prepares you for the path you want to take!

DESIGN

& ARCHITECTURE

࢝ Advanced Manufacturing

࢝ Architecture & Landscape Architecture

࢝ Communications Design (Graphic Design & UX)

࢝ Fashion Design

࢝ Interior Design & CAD

ACCREDITED PROGRAMS

PERFORMING ARTS

࢝ Acting & Technical Theater

࢝ Creating Music for Film,TV & Gaming | Songwriting

࢝ Film, Television, and Electronic Media

࢝ Music Performance & Music Education

࢝ Music Production & Recording Arts

࢝ Musical Theater

» National Association of Schools of Art & Design

» National Association of Schools of Music

Cilker is an All-Steinway School offering courses in Stage Technology, Dance, Applied Music lessons (Performing Arts), and CLO3D (Fashion).

VISUAL ARTS

࢝ Animation & Computer Art

࢝ Art History

࢝ Drawing & Painting

࢝ Photography

࢝ Sculpture & Ceramics

@wvccilkersoad

CONTENT

PERFORM 17.3

Summer 2025 San Jose, California

ART & DESIGN

10 West Valley College

Cilker School of Art and Design

18 Dean & Lowrider Dr. John Ulloa

22 Designer, Ted Holladay

28 Artist, Natasha Kramskaya

34 Artist, Hana Lock

40 Photographer, Jacque Rupp

48 Artist & Muralist, Jet Martinez

54 2025 San Jose Creative Ambassadors, Julie Cardenas, Jessica Gutierrez, Miguel Fernando Ozuna, Steven Rubalcaba, Matthew Casey

PERFORM

66 Comedian, Paula “PX Floro” Xaviera

70 Actor, Barton “Bart” Perry

74 Music Producer and DJ, RCADE

78 Musician, Yvette Young FOOD

82 Eos & Nyx, Chef Nicko Moulinos

88 Contributors

All materials in CONTENT MAGAZINE are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published, broadcast, or modified in any way without the prior written consent of Silicon Valley Creates, or in the case of third party materials, the owner of that content. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of this content. For further information, or to participate in the production or distribution, please contact us at editor@content-magazine.com

2025 ARTS ACCESS GRANTS

This grant program is made possible in partnership with the County of Santa Clara, with additional funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.

SVCREATES is honored to support cultural programming designed by local arts organizations specifically for underserved communities in our region. Look out for inspiring public programs provided by these organizations.

2025 Arts Access Grantees:

ArtHouse Studio

Cashion Cultural Legacy

CreaTV San Jose de Saisset Museum

EASTSIDE Magazine

Local Color

MACLA/Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana

Mosaic America

Palo Alto Players

Poetry Center San José

Red Ladder Theatre Company

San Jose Jazz

School of Arts and Culture at MHP

Silicon Valley African Film Festival

Teatro Visión

School of Art and Design CILKER

WEST VALLEY COLLEGE’S ART + DESIGN EXPO ’25

West Valley College’s Bill & Leila Cilker School of Art and Design has a bold goal: cultivating systemic change by offering accessible arts education. The school achieves this through its wide range of interdisciplinary offerings designed to encourage well-rounded and thoughtful students.

Cilker School of Art and Design is coming up on its second year in its new Visual Arts Complex, which opened in the fall of 2023. The building houses five different art studios for painting, digital media, sculpture, and ceramics, as well as computer labs and machine shops. Designed to be a hub for the arts, the facility helps students further explore their interests and experiment with their craft in a safe and welcoming environment.

The complex is the site for the school’s 2025 Art + Design EXPO, which celebrates graduating students. The annual three-day event features work from current and graduating students across Cilker’s diverse set of disciplines, including architecture, art, graphic design, fashion, industrial design, film, music, photography, theater, and dance. The EXPO provides a space for students, faculty, and guests to connect across disciplines and collaborate, in line with Cilker’s goal of systemic change.

We’re highlighting three students featured at the EXPO as they reflect on their work at the school and their future careers. C

Written by Meghan Lee | Photography by Daniel Garcia

“I’ve taken stuff from each character I played and gained a newfound confidence in myself.”

NATALIE PINEDA

THEATER

Natalie Pineda learns something from each character she plays. Acting has helped develop her confidence as she embodies different roles. As a child, Pineda always wanted to act, but her parents couldn’t afford community theater, and her high school didn’t have a drama program. She later became a nursing major at West Valley College, but fell behind during the COVID-19 pandemic. Then, in the spring of 2021, she attended the school’s production of Into the Woods. The show changed her whole perspective—she decided to change her major to theater. She enrolled in her first acting class for the fall semester and auditioned for her first role a year later. Since then, she’s performed in seven shows with the school and has taken all the acting classes West Valley has to offer. She’s hoping to transfer to UC Santa Barbara to continue her theater major in the fall. C Instagram: nat0elie

GRIFFIN HENNESSY

STUDIO ART

Griffin Hennessy told himself that if he was ever injured skateboarding, he’d pivot to painting. After he broke his leg skateboarding two years ago, Hennessy decided to enroll in West Valley College’s studio art program. Years earlier, Hennessy studied business at West Valley and later moved to Washington. While working in sales, he also painted. He realized he didn’t see a future for himself in sales, and his injury further catapulted him into majoring in studio art. He’s now finished his degree at West Valley and is hoping to transfer to UC Santa Cruz. Hennessy attributes parts of his surrealist style to his love of bold and wacky visuals from skating subculture. He works as a painter, illustrator, and sculptor, and says his process is materials focused. The constraints of his materials and space help him conceptualize the direction for his work. C Instagram: ilikedirt666

“The first artist that really caught my eye was Salvador Dalí, seeing how surreal and abstract and, like, crazy everything can get but still come out as fine art.”

“What’s the fun in that, you know, sticking to one thing when I have so many stories I can tell?”

CLYDE ELLOSO

FASHION DESIGN

Clyde Elloso took his first class in fashion by accident; his high school mistakenly enrolled him in the wrong elective. Although he’d consciously cultivated his personal style, Elloso had never thought about designing clothes before. He stayed in the class, which eventually took a tour of West Valley College and its fashion lab. Elloso knew then that’s where he belonged. Elloso was born in the Philippines and moved to the US with his family in 2012. As a kid, he felt like he was always caught between two cultures—Asian and American. From this, he developed a mentality that would later influence his artistic perspective: doing what he wants to do and avoiding people pleasing. Now, in his second year at West Valley, he’s in a “gothic” phase of design. At the beginning of his career, Elloso is excited to explore a wide range of aesthetics in his work.

Instagram:

Lowride Worldwide JOHN ULLOA

“Written

David E. Valdespino Jr

That picture is there for a very specific reason. My earliest childhood memories involved that car.” The wall space directly across from Doctor John Ulloa’s desk holds a framed photo of a lowrider. He remembers, “I lived to see that car wipe across the screen. I’m getting goosebumps talking about it.” The car is a custom pink and chrome 1964 Chevrolet Impala named Gypsy Rose—widely considered the most recognizable lowrider car in the world. Gypsy Rose was brought to life in the early 1970s by the late East Los Angeles lowrider Jesse Valadez and was featured in the opening credits of the mid-70s television series Chico and the Man. “The sitcom was about this racist old man who had a garage, this young Latino, Freddie Prinze, and the interplay between them and social issues,” he explains. That car and those early memories serve as a precursor to a practice, whether in the classroom or on the asphalt, that is grounded in connection and investigating the nuances of human interaction.

Doctor John Ulloa is the Dean of Language Arts and Social

Science at West Valley College, professor, lowrider, musician, historian, and cultural anthropologist. In relation to all these fields, he is a conduit—bridging the gap between academic theory and human experience. His research examines the global diffusion of lowriding culture, from Mexican-American barrios to various countries outside the United States. He is an active member of the Bay Area lowriding community and a member of the San Francisco–based Low Creations Car Club. His scholarship has been presented internationally and has been featured in numerous publications. He wrote the first chapter of The Lowrider Studies Reader: Culture, Resistance, Liberation, and Familia—the first book dedicated to lowrider studies. He is the first academic to be published with the intentional framing of lowriding in a global context and organizer of the first Annual International Lowrider Studies Conference in 2021.

Ulloa’s awareness of the interplay between culture and society can be traced back to his youth, growing up in a diverse neighborhood in Modesto, California. His mother would call him a little adult, because of the way he could engage in conversation. He enjoyed visiting friends and observing different family dynamics. “I’ve always been fascinated by how people live.” While his journey led him to a career in education, as a drummer, his original plan was to be a “rock star.” “My mom was a professional singer and knew the music business was cutthroat,” he says. “She told me I had to have something to fall back on.” Ulloa has performed in numerous musical projects; he still has rejection letters from record labels for an early project but has continued to perform. He would later blend his research and passion for music as the leader of a Latin

jazz quartet called “La Misión.” He is currently part of a country music band in San Jose. “Being outside your comfort zone forces growth, forces change.”

Ulloa received an AA in general studies from Modesto Junior College before earning a BA in history with a concentration in Latin America, an MA in Latin American history and anthropology, and an EdD in educational leadership from San Francisco State University. Three of his college professors, Al Smith, Bob Elam, and Ted Hamilton–whose framed photos are placed near Ulloa’s desk–profoundly influenced his worldview and career in education. Ulloa muses, “Blame those guys for me sitting in this chair. That’s why that picture is there.” Those professors illustrated education as not simply imparting information but fostering connection and understanding. Bob Elam and his wife, Joy, took Ulloa under their wings while he pursued his master’s, paying his rent when he could not find a place to live.

“As an

“ “ The key is how you relate to people. You teach people how to find that thing within themselves that has them hitting the gas.

educator, I’ve tried tapping into how others affected positive change within myself, but also recognizing that not everybody is at the top; the real work is supporting folks that need that extra help.”

Ulloa’s teaching practice and lowriding scholarship are grounded in equity and using lived experience to build connections. “The key is how you relate to people” he says. “You teach people how to find that thing within themselves that has them hitting the gas. That ‘aha’ moment is the magic of teaching and learning.” That genuine sense of learning can occur when students connect with the material personally and see themselves reflected in the stories and theories being discussed. That emphasis on connection can also apply to lowriding culture.

Ulloa’s work moves beyond merely analyzing culture; he immerses himself in it. “The difference between me and the other scholars that write about lowriding is that my DNA is in my car—my blood, sweat, and tears,” he explains. His doctoral dissertation explored lowriding as a “community-based epistemology,” asserting that the culture, far from being a mere aesthetic, is a complex system of knowledge and tradition in dialogue with community. Knowledge isn’t confined to textbooks; it’s embedded in the chrome and paint of a ’64 Impala, in the stories of elders, and in the very act of preserving a cultural legacy. Lowriding is a form of art, a living expression of cultural identity and community pride. “Lowriding has gone from a myopically segregated cultural practice to a literal worldwide phenomenon.” C

HOLLADAY TED A JACK-OF-ALL-DESIGNS

SANTA CRUZ

CREATIVE DIRECTOR AND DESIGNER TED HOLLADAY USES HIS PASSION FOR LOCAL BUSINESS AND HIS WEALTH OF DESIGN SKILLS TO CREATE INSPIRED BRANDING WITH AN IMPACT.

Creative director, graphic designer, and photographer are a few titles Santa Cruz creative Ted Holladay throws around these days. With a career spanning over three decades, Ted has an extensive and diverse portfolio, from big names like Apple, Microsoft, and Dell to local names like the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History, First Friday Santa Cruz, and Martinelli’s.

Ted’s passion for design and print media started when he was young. Inspired by architecture and photography, he began his quest for a career at age 16. Ambitious and hungry to learn, Ted landed his first job as a typesetter at a traditional printing shop in Pennsylvania. The first Mac computer had just hit the market, and desktop publishing was in its infancy. Ted’s dad bought him a Macintosh SE for $2,000 in the late 1980s, and his career was born.

Encouraged by his parents and bosses, Ted landed his second job at a local service bureau scanning and outputting film. Ted’s days were filled with attending school, working two jobs, and playing around on his Mac, finding creative ways to produce graphics on the screen. Ted reflects, “I would draw stuff on tracing paper and tape it to my screen, go into MacDraw or MacPaint, and draw the picture with the cursor. There were no scanners, so I would just figure out how to do things.”

Later, he went on to work at a newspaper in the ad department, which led to work at a design agency as a graphic designer, art director, and creative director simultaneously.

“ I’M GOING TO DO THE BRAND’S STYLE AND DO IT WELL.”

As technology advanced, so did he, teaching himself the Adobe Creative Suite and becoming one of the first designers to produce a book in InDesign and bring it to print as a PDF. After lots of moving around in his young life, Ted found Santa Cruz and opened his design studio, Studio Holladay, 16 years ago. He also worked as a creative director for Liquid Agency in San Jose, opened a West Coast office for Hirshorn Zuckerman Design Group, and took on various other contracts working on projects for large companies.

Ted says working for himself and being his own boss is where he thrives, finding the most freedom and inspiration in his work. A self-proclaimed jack-of-all-trades in design, Ted has a style that lives outside of all the boxes. His ability to focus on brands, he says, allows him to create from a perspective other than his own. “I’m going to do the brand’s style and do it well.” From rebranding to creating new brands from scratch, Ted has a full project bank. Far from a “onenote designer,” he keeps his work interesting by taking on a menagerie of projects—billboards, books, packaging, product design, logos, websites, video games, photography, and even interior design gigs.

One of Ted’s favorite design projects was creating the 150th anniversary book for Watsonville-based apple juice company Martinelli’s. The book project allowed him to flex his many design muscles, acting as a project manager, creative director, graphic designer, and photographer. The project lasted many months and consisted of organizing and photographing

150 years’ worth of bottles, packaging, ads, and company memorabilia. The result was 220 pages that started with an older aesthetic and progressed into a modern style, reflecting the company’s changes over the years.

Ted has always had a love for photography. Shooting for over 30 years, he’s played with both classic film and digital cameras. His favorite is the Leica M9. His skills landed him work as a photographer for Verve Coffee Roasters and Edible Monterey Bay, but one of his passion projects, impact.831, was a business resource website focused on local businesses that made a big impact on Santa Cruz culture. In each profile, Ted’s artistic photos gave viewers a visual tour of the featured business. His ad campaign for the website won a national Eddy Award in 2013.

Currently, Ted is working on a host of projects for both local Santa Cruz businesses and national companies from his studio in Felton and studio shop on the Westside in Santa Cruz. He also volunteers as a guest design instructor in local high school classrooms. On his desk is a presentation deck for Arts Council Santa Cruz County, rebranding for lighting and furniture company Illuminée, and a website redesign for Rep-Cal, a reptile nutrition brand. His ability to morph into any brand’s style vastly contributes to his success as a creative director and designer, but his passion for local business and entrepreneurial heart is what makes him shine. C

“THERE WERE NO SCANNERS, SO I WOULD JUST FIGURE OUT HOW TO DO THINGS.”

NATASHA KRAMSKAYA

uses visual alchemy to explore resilience, cultural heritage, and freedom.

Natasha Kramskaya’s art studio takes up approximately one-fourth of the garage in her suburban San Jose home. In her small corner, she stores tubes of acrylic and oil paint in bins and on shelves. Finished and unfinished canvases are propped against the walls. One of the jars on her table contains shreds of previous paintings. She calls her creative process “visual alchemy,” as she frequently experiments with remnants from previous projects, handwritten letters from her parents, newspapers, and one-gallon house paint cans obtained from discard piles at Home Depot.

Natasha didn’t always work with such a wide variety of materials. As a Ukrainian-born artist, her early work was heavily influenced by European classical art, especially Renaissance paintings. She initially studied architecture in Ukraine because it seemed like a practical career path that still allowed her to be creative. However, when she moved to the US, she decided not to continue. “It just felt too linear and rigid,” she says. Natasha then studied graphic design at the San Francisco University Academy of Art, where museums like the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art completely opened her world.

Written by Yvonne Phan

Studying works by Jean-Michel Basquiat and Yves Klein inspired her to use more bold, colorful pigments and be more expressive in her own work. Around that time, she also started to use her materials more freely. “I used to be so precious with paints,” she recalls. “I had these small tubes of watercolor paint, and I was so careful not to waste any, until someone gave me a large acrylic paint tube, and I realized how good it feels to squeeze out more and actually use them.” Her renewed approach to art mirrored her new approach to life: “I felt more freedom after that,” she continues. “My biggest goal in life is to be free and explore.”

“

I am not a portrait artist. I am not an abstract artist. Not a mixed media or collage or whatever artist. I am not a woman artist.

I AM AN ARTIST.”

Natasha’s art explores many themes and subjects: empathy, kindness, cultural identity, the fragility of life. Her recent work also incorporates elements of primitive art, inspired by her research of ancient symbols and traditions. Growing up on Ukraine’s Black Sea coast, she would often explore the coast of the estuary and find pottery fragments where the archaic Greek city of Tyras once stood. This exploration of history and cultural identity that she cultivated as a child continues to impact her work today.

Her most recent solo exhibition, Beyond Borders, showcases 18 works that range from portraits to abstracts. She transcends cultural boundaries by blending her Ukrainian heritage with a contemporary American art style. She felt inspired to convey the fragility of life through art following the invasion of her homeland in 2022. “You can’t ignore what’s happening. It made me realize that I want to spread peace and kindness through my art. I could have been super dark and negative, but the kindness approach speaks more,” she explains.

Several recurring motifs in her art, such as the sunflower, are intentional and meaningful. The sunflower is the national flower of Ukraine and is a symbol of hope, peace, and resilience. In her piece titled Ukrainian Spring, she explores cultural preservation and the will to survive through a colorful portrait of a woman wearing a flower crown, layered with a Ukrainian newspaper article about the invasion. The newspaper is overlaid on the woman’s chin, throat, and shoulders and is cut into the shape of the tree of life, a common motif in Ukrainian traditional embroidery.

On the opening day of her solo exhibition at Phantom Galleries in downtown San Jose, Natasha gave flowers to everyone who came. “Flowers are delicate, and yet so strong. They are dormant, and then they come back. They’re so resilient,” she says.

In some ways, Natasha embodies resilience every day. She works a nine-to-five job as a creative and brand director for a tech company and often juggles several projects at a time. She creates art mainly in the evenings and on weekends, and she has a deep appreciation for her completely analog creative processes, which contrast with how much she relies on computers and technology at her day job. After a long day at work, she likes to grab dinner and head straight to the studio. “Creating art gives me so much energy, instead of draining me. Even if it’s just color mixing or reorganizing my studio, it gives me so much energy and inspiration.”

At the end of the day, Natasha is many things. She has experimented with several different mediums and has found themes that are important for her to convey in her artwork, but she doesn’t like to be defined by labels. “I am not a portrait artist. I am not an abstract artist. Not a mixed media or collage or whatever artist. I am not a woman artist,” she declares. “I am an artist.” C

“It’s like morbid curiosity in a way that sucked me in, and I never left.”

HANA LOCK

In any of the personal sketchbooks used and archived by Hana Lock, you will find streams of creative consciousness, from ink tests to doodles of bones, muscles, and flesh. From one leaf to the next, these pages are a proving ground for inspiration. More often than not, the mundane musings of daily life remain journal-bound, while more macabre meditations find their way into her body of work.

Lock’s artwork, a mixture of ballpoint pen and paint, generally explores the thin semblance of flesh that separates life and death—the physical from the spiritual. The permanence of ink is counterbalanced by ruminations on the impermanence of flesh found in her large two-dimensional drawings. Her compositions combine science and fantasy, depicting intricate interpretations of human and animal anatomy peeled back in melted layers that illustrate the inner workings of bone and muscle, intertwined with blooming floral arrangements, fetuses, or a persistent frog hidden within the layers. “Pretty much all my pieces have at least one or two frogs hidden in there. I think it just makes the viewing experience more fun. My pieces are pretty dark, but I like adding a playful element,” she explains.

Despite her current interest in the decomposition of anatomical forms, Hana recalls a time when she feared what happened beneath the skin. “When I was little, I was really scared of skeletons. I distinctly remember having nightmares about them,” Hana says. “Death and skulls scared the hell out of me.” Hana grew up in Sunnyvale and began drawing at a young age. “I would draw cute little cartoons, Totoro, Pokémon, just like cute animals. I think the catalyst for everything was when I was 14.” At 14, Hana wandered into the California Academy of Sciences’ Skulls exhibit while visiting San Francisco with her parents. The exhibition showcased over 600 skulls from various creatures and a display that demonstrated how dermestid beetles would devour the flesh from bones, turning skulls into specimens. “I saw the exhibition and thought, ‘this is beautiful and interesting.’ It’s like morbid curiosity in a way that sucked me in, and I never left,” she recalls. Hana’s parents have long supported her creative practice. “They were never really put off by my interest in dead things. They were really forgiving and supportive. I’m lucky. I think it’s because my dad grew up with that Asian immigrant family mindset of ‘you have to be successful.’ He decided, ‘I’m not doing

“When I was little, I was really scared of skeletons. I distinctly remember having nightmares about them. Death and skulls scared the hell out of me.”

that with my kids.’ ” That support from her family led Hana to earn a BFA in fine and studio arts and pictorial arts from San José State University in 2022. While in school, she rode the wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. “It was different. We thought we would be back in a couple of weeks, but that never happened,” she says. Lockdown made classes difficult and reduced her access to studio facilities. However, she did find inspiration in her time at home, which allowed her to go big with her compositions. “At home, I would work on six by eight pads of paper and tape another piece on and keep taping and taping until I had a big piece. I realized that I could make these drawings into full-fledged pieces.” She defined her voice in the works she produced for her BFA show, some of which also made their way into her 2024 solo exhibition at the Triton Museum in Santa Clara. “I started to get a better idea of what I wanted to draw in that last semester.” Hana says. “It was like a light bulb went off— ballpoint pen plus anatomy plus flat colors helped bring it all together.”

Hana had previously submitted work to the Triton Museum’s annual Salon and 2D Art Competition & Exhibition while in college but was finally accepted in 2023. Her 2022

piece, Guren, won best in show at the Salon, awarding her a solo exhibition in one of Triton’s galleries. Guren is a large six-foot by two-foot piece that includes ballpoint pen, acrylic, watercolor, ink, and gold foil spanning across four wooden panels. A gold foil snake winds through the composition—its body coiled through various stages of putrescence. There is an anthropomorphic corpse, a melting skull, and a mammal fetus, all being reclaimed by sprawling foliage. On one end, the snake’s mouth is held open by a frog; on the other, the snake’s tail is a human head, mouth probed by another of the twelve frogs in the piece. Grim visages of babies, some with horns, seem to watch the piece unfold, as if the lesser-told and often gruesome cycle of life is washed across the panels.

“I try to balance the grotesqueness with beauty.” Despite the macabre nature of her work, Hana is generally inspired by scientific curiosity. She levels her depictions of taboo topics with ethical consciousness, especially when referencing source materials. “I like to look at these things from a more scientific lens. Biological illustrations and medical models are a huge inspiration,” she says. “As long as they are either really old, medical models,

mummies, or they’re donated, I think it’s fine. I don’t like crime documentaries. That kind of gratuitousness feels a little icky.” Aside from human forms, Hana’s work is also inspired by Japanese culture and art. She grew up around Japanese Buddhism and Shintoism, which has found its way into her pieces. “My mom is Japanese Buddhist, so I grew up seeing cool looking deities—big statues of Buddha, warriors, gods, demons, and folklore about death and reincarnation. I think that bled over into my work before I realized it.” Despite the inability to explore printmaking in depth while in college, Hana

a piece, it’s usually just a sketch or a doodle that I think is nice, and I’ll convert it into a bigger sketch and go from there. I won’t know what I’m doing until the end. You can call it poorly planned—poorly planned, spontaneous, or organic.” When you flip through Hana’s sketchbook, her process is fully displayed. Between pages of notes and bubbly ballpoint bunnies, you can see components of her larger compositions. “Eighty percent of it is kind of garbage, but the other twenty percent is pretty good. It’s just somewhere to throw up ideas. It helps clear my mind. Sketchbooks are a huge part of my process. I think it’s

“I try to balance the grotesqueness with beauty.”

still hopes to translate her work into prints, citing Japanese printmaking as a significant influence. “That’s why everything is 2D in my work,” she explains. “I want to return to printmaking if I can find the materials and time. I respect craftsmen, and I have always wanted to be one—using traditional processes and working in my workshop.”

Hana still subscribes to her practice of sketchbooking, which is the foundation for her current work. In many ways, her dissection of biomechanics and investigation of organic processes such as decomposition are parallel to her intuitive creative processes. “When I start

underappreciated. That’s my advice for young artists: keep a sketchbook.”

As Hana recovers from her 2024 solo exhibition, Anatomica, at the Triton, she works as a substitute teacher in the South Bay, where she grew up. She hopes to earn an MFA but generally wants to “make a living and be able to make art. That’s all I want to do. As long as I’m drawing, I think I’m happy.” When asked what she thinks of ‘macabre’ as an adjective to describe her work, she simply shares, “Morbid, macabre, grotesque—all good.” C

Jacque

Rupp

“I’m always learning,”

quips Jacque Rupp, a lifelong photographer who has deepened her craft over the past several years. With a robust career as an executive in Silicon Valley, including working for Apple, photography has been her throughline to navigate life, death, grief, aging, and womanhood. Jacque recalls, “Photography has always brought me so much joy. Particularly when I’ve gone through a tough time in my life, such as people dying, I find that photography is a great escape.”

Growing up, Jacque moved around the country, which channeled her ability to change, grow, and connect with people. “I’ve had to rebuild many, many times in my life, and I hope I’ve gotten better over time. But I also realize that’s also a gift, because I can connect with people easily,” she shares. Always in a new situation—whether leading recruitment teams, partaking in photography expeditions around the world, or continuing to grow her photography practice by attending lectures, workshops, and residencies—Jacque strives to build deep connections with the people she encounters. This search for depth is omnipresent in Jacque’s work. Whether as a photojournalist, capturing migrant workers along the central coast or exploring grief, aging, and femininity through her fine art project, The Red Purse: A Story of Grief and Desire—Jacque’s ultimate goal is to build an emotional connection through the lens of her camera.

Intention, purpose, and curiosity drive Jacque’s creativity: “I’ve always looked for purpose in photography. I want to do it for a reason; it’s not just to be pretty. And through

traveling, I want to tell stories about people. It’s always about the people. I’m incredibly curious, and it’s a way for me to share what I see, how I see it, and tell that story.” This depth is palpable in her photographs—the intense contrast, moody, noir aesthetic, and affinity for night photography are all evidence of Jacque’s intention to build an emotional connection with the viewer. Her commitment to using the photographer’s eye to build that connection creates magic.

Her creative inspiration often comes from film, particularly the late David Lynch and Alfred Hitchcock: “What motivates and inspires me as a photographer is film. I refer to a lot of David Lynch films in my work. I love noir, Hitchcock. I think I’m definitely more inspired by movies than photographers.” Jacque sees herself as a visual storyteller, and film inspires her to add depth and meaning to her photography, “Film is just a moving image and I’m a storyteller. Film is a stream of moving images and the emotion that comes with it. Often when I’m watching a film, I’ll freeze a moment and take a picture of it as inspiration. It’s the storytelling factor, the cinematography that I love.”

Jacque’s quest for depth is heavily influenced by loss. In her thirties, her first experience of deep grief was the loss of her father, which shifted the way she saw the world. Shortly thereafter, she lost her sister, and then her husband, an insurmountable loss that completely shifted the ground from under her. Grief—a universal emotion we all must face sooner or later in life—shaped the way Jacque sees, interacts, and engages with the world. “Once you lose someone you love, how you engage with the world around you is

Life and Loss: Fostering Connection Through

Visual Storytelling

forever changed,” Jacque proclaims, adding, “Death definitely takes you to a place, which I think is a gift in a way, because you appreciate and see things on such a deeper level. And you find that you need to be around people who have that greater depth. I don’t have the patience for surface level anymore.”

Through grief, photography remained a constant. As a widow with two young boys, Jacque’s hunger to connect with others and to share her experiences of grief, continued. Losing her husband forced her to shift her identity—but succumbing to despair wasn’t an option. She recalls, “I remember I was hungry to be normal again. You didn’t want to be pitied, you didn’t want to be treated differently, you don’t know what you’re supposed to do—do I have to wait a year to be happy?”

At the time of her husband’s death, there were limited resources for Jacque and her children to navigate their loss. Jacque was in her forties, her prime of life, and although her husband was gone, she still wanted what she lost. Insignificant at the time, purchasing

a red purse gave Jacque permission to seek connection, feel desirable, and embrace her new identity. Reminiscing, “At that time I was reclaiming my own space, changing the house, making things more feminine and everything was different. I wanted to embrace that it was different. I realized later that the purse embodied everything I needed as a woman, and it gave me permission to be feminine, sexual. I was in my forties so I still wanted what I lost.” In addition, the purse gave Jacque the permission to explore life beyond the identity she built. “The purse became this reminder that it was okay to do all of these things—try on different persona, and at the time, there weren’t any resources, nothing that I found that resonated with my age group.”

Although the purse remained in Jacque’s possession for years, it wasn’t until the pandemic—twenty years after her husband’s passing—that Jacque began to use it as a prop to explore grief through her photography. Culminating in a small, red velvet book that emulates the purse she purchased, The Red

Purse depicts a visual story exploring grief, aging, femininity, and sexuality. The Red Purse is Jacque’s way of embracing the loss she’s experienced and how she grew, lived, and honored herself in the process: “The Red Purse is about grief, and what I want [from the viewer] is for them to get comfortable opening up a conversation that we normally don’t talk about.” Through the lens of self-portraiture, The Red Purse permits Jacque to navigate her own desire and grasp on aging—aging in a society that seeks eternal youth by any means necessary. She proclaims, “I wasn’t going to do ‘widowhood’ like other people were going to do it. I don’t want to do ‘aging’ the way other people do it. I don’t want to succumb to what we think we have to do. I wanted to find a more authentic experience.”

Jacque’s quest for deeper meaning, to explore her own femininity and emotions, and how society perceives women, aging, and widowhood, is held through the lens of her camera. Always searching for deeper meaning, to emotionally connect with those around her, and to deepen her understanding of her own emotions, Jacque has shaped loss into art—a story that connects the viewer to their own emotional journey. Jacque hopes her photography shows the viewer that embracing grief and aging is a part of life, and in turn, beautiful. “I’m getting older, and to be able to embrace it I think comes from within. I think having the wisdom to embrace aging, just like embracing grief, is real. And aging is real, but it is beautiful too.” C

¿Qué dirán?

¿Qué dirán?

Jet Martinez

What will they say? What will they say?

Driving through the streets of Oakland or San Francisco, you may come across ginormous painted calla lilies bursting along the side of a building in a gradient of greens. Lines of gold tracing birds and leaves might catch your eye through an office window. These blossoming worlds are the works of Jet Martinez, a Mexican American painter based in the East Bay.

“It’s in the making of things,” says Jet Martinez, who has been an influential figure in the San Francisco Bay Area public arts scene for nearly three decades. After studying Spanish literature, he pursued a formal arts education at the San Francisco Art Institute in 1997, where he earned a BFA in painting and printmaking. Since then, he has left his mark on walls around the world in places like Java, Oaxaca, and Zurich, as well as cities in the United States, such as Denver, Miami, and New Orleans. “Painting is a way of processing. It helps me process my life, whether an argument or a problem. It’s how I process my sense of self.”

Many of Jet’s murals feature a variety of flora and fauna, deriving his composition and bold color choice from traditional Mexican folk art. Born in Tuxpan, Veracruz, Mexico, and raised in Cuernavaca, Morelos, Jet is inspired by his native culture’s roots in pottery, weaving, and embroidery. He creates rhythmic patterns in his public artwork,

allowing him to bridge the gap between his life in Mexico and his teen years in the United States. “I grew up with graffiti, White Walls, and Juxtapoz, but I also come from the melting pot that is Mexico. I developed my mural style so I could just step up to a wall and go. Before, I would try to make an intricate painting, and it just took too long.”

Jet is best known for his murals, but his artistic practice extends beyond public art. He’s applied his designs to prints, installations, and streetwear, allowing his work to reach different audiences. Over the years, Jet has worked with several big-name companies and brands. A quick Google search will show large walls covered in brightly colored roses and birds surrounding public parks and black and white peonies printed on sweatshirts. “A lot of times people ask me to do some iteration of something I’ve already done. And I’ve had this major hang up with like, qué dirán?” He adds, “Creating art is a fast lane to someone else with mutual understanding. My work gives me access to other people, and it allows others to access what I want them to have.”

When working on commissioned art, an artist often must modify their artistic vision in order to make a client’s dream come true. Whether considering branding or the color palette of office furniture, Jet finds himself constantly refining his florals into another’s

Written by Alyssarhaye Graciano

Photography by Daniel Garcia

jetmartinez.com

“The creation of a project is the creation of a problem to work on or solve. I think that’s a lot of what artists do— we make problems for ourselves.”

aesthetic. “The murals are jobs. In 2022, I had a lot of work, a lot of commissions, but I didn’t have time to do my art—to think, to dream, to experiment.” After that realization, Jet rented his own studio away from home, having shared a space with his wife and fellow artist, Kelly Ording. “I began to carve out more space and time. Now, three years later, I feel back in touch with being an artist.”

Between big mural projects, Jet problemsolves personal work in his studio day and night. Bordering the Oakland Estuary, its big open windows, exposed brick wall, and mini fridge make up an artist’s ideal studio. Years of work sitting kitty-corner to stacks of milk crates holding a seemingly endless supply of aerosol cans. The space is complete with a few roof leaks, a thriving monstera plant, and a desk for the occasional email. Jet sits on his futon, enjoying a pastry from a local bakery and drinking licorice tea to get in a creative mindset. “Making art in private is essential to our society. The creation of a project is the creation of a problem to work on or solve. I

“Making art in private is essential to our society.”

think that’s a lot of what artists do. We make problems for ourselves. El hacer por el hecho de hacer.”

Concentrated time in his studio has allowed Jet the space and time to question his process and what his work represents.

“I feel like I let my family down when I’m not creating. My practice is ingrained in my well-being, and I’m a much more balanced person when I’m making art…when I’m making something that wasn’t there before.”

While Jet’s body of work is layered with personal narrative, it may not be apparent at first glance. His recent practice has allowed him to traverse his mixed-race background, combining the cultures and communities in which he grew up. The English and German heritage he inherited from his mother doesn’t tend to show up in his work as overtly as his time living under the Mexican sun. “Often, I feel just fine with who I am, but I sometimes question whether I have access to certain Mexican traditions.” Jet immigrated to the States at the age of 14. “Not knowing whether I have permission to access this lineage of work is a real question that is always in my head. At the same time, I also feel like my intention is to create something that feels like it belongs here, specifically in the Bay Area.”

Jet’s work has been shown in commercial galleries, both nationally and internationally. A combination of solo exhibitions and group shows have featured his distinctive linework and ornate details, the pieces finding homes in the hands of collectors. In 2024, his solo

exhibition A Language of Flowers was on display at Heron Arts in San Francisco. His next solo show will open on June 6, 2025, in Downtown San Jose at MACLA (Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana).

The exhibition will feature work five years in the making, beginning with an experimental concept developed during the COVID-19 pandemic. “At the time, I was making a lot of really quiet, muted work just because everything felt so murky. I didn’t feel like doing bright, exuberant stuff.” As the pandemic waned, Jet found himself needing more light in his work. He returned to his colors and penchant for strong, decorative design. “Sometimes, art feels so persistent. Especially in these times—in times of war, in times of great conflict—to make something beautiful feels like an act of resistance.” The series of twenty original works examines the passage of time and the motifs that make Jet’s work uniquely his own while interrogating the need to start over and try again.

“This new process has been a total deep dive into my fear of repeating myself. In that process of repeating myself, I’m seeing that none of this is the same. When you expose your vulnerabilities, it allows others to do the same. It’s a much more nutritious conversation.” C

¿Qué

The vibrancy of San Jose’s creative culture can be found on its streets, in its art galleries, infused in local businesses, and in the work of neighbors who use creativity to connect, reflect, and inspire. The City of San Jose’s Creative Ambassador program awards artists who champion the power of creative expression. Chosen for their commitment to an artistic practice and community engagement, these ambassadors represent a wide range of disciplines and cultural perspectives that capture the city’s creative pulse.

Selected by the City of San Jose’s Office of Cultural Affairs through a competitive panel process, each ambassador begins a yearlong role dedicated to uplifting local voices through public art projects, workshops, and storytelling. Their projects are rooted in the neighborhoods of San Jose and are designed to invite hands-on participation from residents—meeting people where they are and inviting them to participate. Whether through film photography, collaborative murals, theater, or zine-making, the ambassadors’ projects offer opportunities for all residents to tap into their unique creative voices and to see their city and each other with fresh eyes.

Their work reminds us that art belongs everywhere—it lives in community.

“When I had my first child, I was creating in [two] aspects—both giving life to an actual human and then giving life to the stories that I’ve been holding on to for so long.”

Julie Cardenas has always navigated identity, survival, and artistic expression. Born and raised in San Jose, California, to Mexican and Peruvian immigrants, Julie found her early inspiration in the stories her parents carried from their homelands. However, she often felt that narratives like hers, of first-generation children in overlooked communities, were missing from hegemonic reality.

With a BA in literature from UCLA and a master’s in education from Lesley University, Julie taught early arts education for 18 years. She also earned an MFA in comics from California College of the Arts. She is currently working on a 12-part memoir series, Pulguitas (little fleas), which explores food insecurity and cultural identity through childhood meals. “When I had my first child, I was creating in [two] aspects—both giving life to an actual human and then giving life to the stories that I’ve been holding on to for so long,” Julie explains.

Her work spans from comics to painting, with a focus on food and climate justice, sustainability, and housing insecurity. She partners with local organizations to empower others through storytelling. “A lot of my work is memoir, focusing on my own story. But a big challenge for me right now is [that] I see myself as a community artist. So, I look around at the issues and the community and see where I can tell stories,” she says.

As a Creative Ambassador, Julie’s upcoming projects focus on housing issues and sustainable art. She continues to transform memory into powerful visual storytelling, ensuring that voices from her community are heard.

Julie shares, “I’m representing the city of San Jose and its people. I am creating space for their stories to be told [and] enabling them to occupy the right of creation in spaces where those rights are not always respected.”

“Art’s always open for interpretation, but for me, when I’m creating it, the energy I’m putting forth is a sense of power, a sense of compassion, and love.”

San Jose-based artist Jessica Gutierrez is a multidisciplinary artist, mother, educator, and graphic designer, dedicated to fostering community and creativity. Her passion for accessible art led her to turn her home into a DIY art space where she hosted free art workshops until the pandemic reshaped her approach.

Jessica’s artwork concentrates on femininity, nature, and empowerment, and she employs flowing linework, organic forms, and symbolic imagery to express growth and resilience. Jessica’s range of mediums include painting, digital illustration, murals, and zine making. She founded Martha Street Art Zine, featuring artists and community-oriented art initiatives.

Multifaceted as a teacher and a mother, Jessica’s art practice is strongly influenced by multiple identities, pushing her to create spaces in which art and motherhood intersect. “I was always doing drawings or paintings of

women, and it’s really been more intentional the last few years, as I’ve learned more about my maternal lineage.” As a Creative Ambassador, she created a series of free art workshops for children and mothers, making them accessible through childcare support and collaborations with community organizations. “A lot of the moms that are artists have wisdom and experience in their art practice. They also have a lot to share about how that has shifted their identity and capacities since they’ve had children.”

Through her art and teaching, Jessica continues to inspire and connect artists, mothers, and teachers, reaffirming the values of storytelling, self-expression, and community-building through art. “When I’m not in touch with my creative practice, I think I lose a sense of who I am. Art’s always open for interpretation, but for me, when I’m creating it, the energy I’m putting forth is a sense of power, a sense of compassion, and love.”

Jessica Gutierrez

The Bridge Between Art and Motherhood

Miguel Fernando Ozuna

More Than Capturing Moments

“I like to see myself as someone who cultivates community, who brings people together. I go places. I meet people. I say ‘Hi.’ And little by little, we keep building something bigger.”

Miguel Fernando Ozuna is a dedicated San Jose, California photographer and community organizer with a Bachelor of Arts in Digital Photography and Associate of Arts in Art History from Arizona State University. Working as the Associate Director of Photography at Santa Clara University, Miguel brings his vast creativity to the job.

“I’m a photographer, storyteller. I was born in East LA, but I grew up to be a man in East San Jose, and San Jose to me is my biggest canvas.”

Miguel is also the founder of SJ Shooters, a collective that supports community engagement through photography and captures the beauty of San Jose. As a 2025 Creative Ambassador, Miguel has the opportunity to hone his skills as a community organizer and teach film photography.

Miguel has launched the second season of his community-based project, A Look Thru Your Lens. Originally initiated in 2020, season one of the project engaged 75 photog-

raphers over four years and culminated in a September 2024 group exhibition at Noble Gallery in San Jose. Now, with renewed momentum and association with the 2025 Creative Ambassadors, the second season invites 75 additional photographers to document San Jose within a single year.

“I like to see myself as someone who cultivates community, who brings people together. I go places. I meet people. I say, ‘Hi.’ And little by little, we keep building something bigger.”

For Miguel, photography isn’t just about taking pictures; it is also about the importance of inclusion. It is about storytelling, unity, and ensuring that every photographer, regardless of background, has a voice that is heard.

“I do what I say. I’m out there all the time, always documenting, always making. I dream about being a professor one day. So much of what I do is teaching, teaching people how to use the camera, and to slow down and really look.”

“Breathing new life into old and used things became my thing—creating new art from the forgotten and showing people the experience they might have been missing.”

Steven Rubalcaba is an artist who is recognized for his innovative style of art, which has an emphasis on sustainability and engagement. Based in San Jose, California, he has been involved in various art projects that transform public spaces and foster collaboration between communities. Steven has created interactive sculptures and murals that facilitate public interaction. “Breathing new life into old and used things became my thing—creating new art from the forgotten and showing people the experience they might have been missing,” Steven shared.

As a Creative Ambassador, Steven strives to respect the city’s diversity and history while highlighting its quieter communities. Currently, he is collaborating with a San José State University class on designing a geo -

metric sculpture for the upcoming SubZERO Festival, using 75 to 100 percent recycled content. Looking ahead, Steven envisions partnerships with builders, developers, and city governments to transform useless materials into public art, merging green initiatives with creativity to reimagine the city.

“Art is my life. And I don’t even call it ‘art.’ I call it ‘creativity,’ because it’s everywhere and it’s in everything,” he said. Through his art, Steven “Nizzotes” Rubalcaba continues to inspire and involve the community, transforming common materials into thought, provoking works of art that foster culture and sustainability.

He shared, “I have been working on new and different things, and I always just remind myself to keep going. And I have found that one thing leads to another.” C

Steven Rubalcaba

Matthew Casey

More Más Marami Arts on Stage

“For me, theater is about connection between artists, audiences, and the places they inhabit.”

For Matthew Casey, the journey to theater was accidental but transformative. Initially attending San José State University for ecology, he later found interest in political science, drawn to the study of human ecosystems. Meanwhile, he was getting increasingly involved in theater, taking on leadership positions that would define his artistic trajectory.

As a production manager for San Jose Stage Company and More Más Marami Arts, Matthew is dedicated to creating meaningful, community-oriented theater. More Más Marami was established in 2008 to help expand access to the performing arts in the South Bay. He explains, “We were all trying to break into the performing industry, but in the South Bay, where there isn’t really a big scene, it’s difficult to get in. So we created a space for ourselves.”

Since its establishment, More Más Marami has been a platform for experimentation in the arts. Their regular programming in-

cludes six weeks of script development for local writers that culminate in a staged reading with a director and full cast. Matthew says, “It’s been great to see it evolve from simply developing scripted work to developing full performance pieces.”

As part of his role at More Más Marami, Matthew spearheads the Bay Area Story Archive, a project launched in 2019 to document personal histories from San Jose residents. He is inspired by his own family roots in New Mexico, where multi-generational connections are the cornerstone of local identity and wishes to see that replicated in San Jose.

As an artist, Matthew describes his work as maximalist and sensorial. His signature style isn’t just directing or producing, but curating immersive experiences. He says, “I want to create interesting things with people I care about. For me, theater is about connection between artists, audiences, and the places they inhabit.” C

PX FLORO Paula Xaviera

Repackaging anxiety into relatable gags, while fighting for San Jose to replace San Francisco as the Bay Area’s comedy mecca

While PX Floro may not be a household name, several South Bay comics relied on her to get their foot in the door. The just-north-of-40 mother of two teenage daughters has honed her standup skills for about 12 years. Paula Xaviera, more colloquially known as PX Floro, was only a year into her comedy career when she decided to pay forward the benevolence granted to her when she was starting out. For 10 years, she’s organized open mics for aspiring comedians during slow nights at local restaurants to drum up business.

After a dozen years paying her dues using self-deprecating humor, opening and hosting for big-name comedians, and offering a leg up to amateur comics, this spring, PX Floro headlined her own show, “Don’t Tell Me What to Do,” which debuted on her 42nd birthday at San Jose Improv. The birthday showcase was special, as her material was geared toward her fans instead of a general audience. “I was excited because this time there was a pretty big audience. It was my following,” she shared.

Comedy wasn’t something PX Floro pursued with any intention of dedicating serious energy to it. Rather, it was a hobby that became a passion. In 2012, she had just left a show at San Jose Improv when she noticed a large

Written by William E. Jeske

“You’ve heard that every neighborhood has a crazy cat lady? Well, I’m the crazy zoo lady.”

“My goal is to create a comedy scene out here to where people are going to want to come here. They won’t have to go to San Francisco, Los Angeles, or Hollywood.”

sign from City College of San Francisco advertising “Comedy College.” She recalls exclaiming that night, “That sounds so cool!”

PX Floro is quite candid about having undergone therapy at the time for depression and credits her therapist—coincidentally, named after one of her favorite comics, George Lopez—with suggesting she try stand up. She shares, “My therapist goes, ‘You’re stressed out now. You’re experiencing depression and some post-traumatic stress, so I think you need to focus on an outlet. So, is there anything you ever wanted to do?’ and I said, ‘Well, lately I’ve been seeing comedy.’ ”

PX Floro says, “I remember driving to my next therapy appointment, thinking, ‘What am I doing? What’s going on with my life right now? Everything’s just falling apart,’ ” adding, “so, as I’m driving, I’m, like, ‘I wonder if there’s a sign to tell me I’m doing the right thing.’ I believe in signs; I believe in instinct and intuition. And at that moment, as I’m thinking this, I take a corner and there’s a sign [for a print shop] that says ‘SIGNS.’ To PX Floro, this serendipitous encounter seemingly provided her a deadpan answer from the forces that be.

PX Floro continues, “I went to the Comedy College. I loved it. I took one intro class, and then when I found out how much [the tuition] would cost I decided, ‘I can’t afford this.’ I’d just had my second kid, my husband was laid off, and where did I have time? After work I had to attend to my family.” She

reluctantly told the teacher she couldn’t afford the classes, and unexpectedly, they responded by offering her some for free. From there, according to PX Floro, “I took the classes, graduated, and I’ve never stopped since.”

PX Floro uses comedy as a therapeutic outlet. Her humor is admittedly self-deprecating. She gleans her material from working two jobs while raising two teenagers and having endured three marriages that have all ended in divorce. She’s also opened her home to five cats and two dogs. “You’ve heard that every neighborhood has a crazy cat lady? Well, I’m the crazy zoo lady,” she quips.

The pets don’t provide much material, but when a Chow Chow joined the family years ago, her daughters asked the voice service and virtual assistant, Alexa, “How long do Chow Chows live?” and [Alexa said] “Seven to nine years. At that time my kids were seven and nine years old and they were bawling their eyes out afraid the dog’s going to die soon, and I’m trying [frantically] to console them saying, ‘That doesn’t always happen! Statistics and…whatever information, we’ll see!’ It’s a bit I’m working on.”

Her energy is directed not just to her career, but in kickstarting other people’s careers by organizing open-mic nights. “My goal is to create a comedy scene out here to where people are going to want to come here. They won’t have to go to San Francisco, Los Angeles, or Hollywood.” C

The Journey of

BARTON PERRY

BORN FOR THE STAGE

“I just remember the way I made people feel during the play. E ven at three years old, after the play, I thought, ‘Oh my god, this is amazing.’ ”

At just three years old, Barton Perry was already on stage captivating audiences with his soulful voice and exuberant personality. While most children were learning to tie their shoes, it was clear that Barton’s passion was for the stage. From his first performance to his multiple theatrical award nominations, Barton has established himself as a staple of Bay Area theater. His journey has been one of passion, positivity, and unwavering dedication to the arts.

Barton was born and raised in Fresno, California, in a closeknit, Christian, “big singing family.” “My mom and dad have been married for 35 years. They’re still together and happy,” said Barton. He credits much of his success to his family, particularly his two brothers. “The three of us grew up singing as a mini boy gospel group in the church,” he shared.

Written by Joshua Hascall

Television played a significant role early in his development. Watching icons like Whitney Houston and Michael Jackson left a lasting impression on Barton. “I could see the way they made me feel, and I wanted to make others feel that same way,” Barton recalled. His parents quickly recognized Barton’s innate ability to move others through music. “My parents knew I had this really big, boisterous personality that would command a room, even at three years old,” he said.

At that young age, Barton made his stage debut alongside his parents in his church’s production of Jesus Saves, where he performed his first solo. “I just remember the way I made people feel during the play,” he recollected. “Even at three years old, after the play, I thought, ‘Oh my god, this is amazing.’ ”

Fueled by this early experience, Barton pursued more acting and singing opportunities in school. In his junior year of

high school, his drama teacher encouraged him to try acting, leading to his first non-singing role in The Pajama Game. By his senior year, he was cast as Jim in the musical Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a pivotal moment in which he reconnected with his early childhood. “That was the moment when I realized that I’m going to sing, I’m going to dance, I’m going to act,” he said.

“From there everything just began to snowball,” said Barton. His success in Big River caught the attention of Roger Rocka’s Dinner Theater, and they offered him the role of Seaweed J. Stubbs in their production of Hairspray. Barton performed in over 40 showings, with high-school commitments during the day and theater performances in the evenings. He went on to take leading roles in Dreamgirls and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee with Roger Rocka, solidifying his position in the local theater scene.

Balancing his blooming theater career with school responsibilities challenged young Barton. He was also involved in his high school’s leadership team and often had to sacrifice other personal events, like attending football games with friends or missing out on important academic ceremonies. (Even now, alongside his theater career, Barton manages a high-end retail store, which he equates with putting on a show every day for customers.) Barton reflected on the trade offs he made, saying, “It was worth the sacrifice because I enjoy making people feel good. Getting that feedback from the audience just feeds my soul and keeps me going the next day.”

Beyond his high school successes, Barton’s signature role as Lola in Kinky Boots left an impressive mark on the theater community. “It just follows me everywhere, and people ask me if I will ever pick up those red boots again.” said Barton.

“It was worth the sacrifice because I enjoy making people feel good. Getting that feedback from the audience just feeds my soul and keeps me going the next day.”

“I am going to say ‘no’ for now, but never say never,” he laughs. The San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle (SFBATCC) nominated him for an Excellence in Theatre Award for his performance, followed by another nomination for his role in The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Barton’s approach to his roles reflects his unique method when developing a character. He develops each of his roles from scratch, researching the time period the character lives in, other actors who have played the character, and drawing inspiration from media of the era. He brings every character to life with their own custom backstory, idiosyncrasies, and distinctive voice. “I still to this day have never watched The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” mused Barton. His biggest aspirations include performing in The Color Purple and Motown: The Musical, though he finds it challenging to bring these productions to the Bay Area, due to a shortage of African American actors. Despite challenges, we might someday see him star as a young Berry Gordy or Michael Jackson on stage.

Barton has spent nearly his entire life giving back to the theater community. For Barton, theater goes beyond mere performance—it’s a reflection of life itself. “Theater addresses the tough conversations that we want to have in real life but sometimes are afraid to have,” he said.

Barton Perry’s positive attitude and joyful disposition reminds us that the simplest joys are priceless. “It doesn’t cost a thing to smile. You don’t have to pay to laugh. You better thank God for that.” C

RCADE DJ

Written by Brandon Roos

During the pandemic, Twitch helped RCADE become a meteoric DJ success. A notable name online and in clubs, he’s building on his buzz to brand his fast-paced, eclectic sound as a can’t-miss experience.

On the decks, Ryan Caragio mixes with a speed and precision that makes even studied eyes and ears wonder how he can adeptly execute so much on the spot. His sets are tailor-made for the Spotify and TikTok age, mixing disparate sounds, eras, and tempos with an unpredictable recklessness that somehow straddles the line between blasphemy and radical inclusion. He’s an equal-opportunity party rocker—no song is taboo if it can take the room higher.

What makes an RCADE? Corporate experience combined with marketing know-how, a commitment to excellence gained from watching champion turntablist routines, a relentless drive instilled from competitive racing (fun fact: he was a race car driver in his teens), and production expertise paired with a studied club ear that knows exactly how to deploy his remixes and edits for maximum impact.

“Everyone’s journey’s different. I feel like mine took longer, but it was meant to take longer so I could have all the ingredients,” explains Caragio. “I feel like now I’m just refining how I make that dish exactly how I want it.” With these ingredients now co-mingling, he has his eye on the ultimate goal: creating a destination DJ experience no one can duplicate.

As a kid, Caragio spent his birthday cash on CDs, starting with Green Day and Dr. Dre. “I got this CD binder, and that binder was my everything,” he notes, adding that he was

always eager to take over the car CD player. “I didn’t even know what a DJ was back then, but I was DJing.”

Surprisingly, Caragio didn’t start his DJ journey until he was 18, when his dad bought him a DJ-in-a-box kit. He cleverly built his crates by asking hosts to help him buy the records they wanted to hear when he played family parties. Woodshedding in DJ SheaButter’s garage, he learned transitions by blending house records.

Caragio rocked dance floors for a decade in relative obscurity, building his intuition at clubs and bars in San Jose and Santa Cruz. He joined DJ/production crew BVMO and later became a resident at weekly party Return of the Boom Zap. In the mid-2010s, he moved to LA with his then fiancé to pursue a music production opportunity that seemed promising. Upon returning to San Jose, he wasn’t sure where his career would take him. Then the pandemic hit.

With help from a computer-savvy friend, Caragio was quick to jump onto streaming-platform Twitch, where DJs migrated to share their sound virtually. An online community formed, and Caragio was among them, streaming regularly—albeit to a chat of roughly 10 people. Then one night, he saw Red BullThre3style-World-Champion Four Color Zack enter his stream, joining a crowd that he jokes was only his family and a handful of bots.

“Everyone’s journey’s different. I feel like mine took longer, but it was meant to take longer so I could have all the ingredients. I feel like now I’m just refining how I make that dish exactly how I want it.”

“Fast forward over the next few months. [DJ] Craze is in my stream. Skratch Bastid’s in the stream. [I started] building relationships with those guys, and they started vouching for me,” he shares. Through co-signs and consistency, he’s built an audience of 10,000 followers on Twitch, and unlike many who abandoned the platform once public spaces opened back up, he still streams twice a week.

That doesn’t mean Caragio didn’t make his own public splash once restrictions eased. In 2021, he became creative/music director at Downtown San Jose club Rec Room, teaming up with former BVMO crew member BJ Bercasio to brand the space. “We just painted this picture of Rec Room as the DJ’s spot,” he says. Soon, the small upstairs room became the ultimate house party.

Since stepping away from Rec Room in mid-2024, Caragio’s been working to build momentum for his own specialty party. He’s hoping he can follow the success that contemporaries like Knowpa Slaps and Angie Vee have created with parties R&B and Ribs and Yer Not Down, respectively. “The soul of that

sound is for music lovers that have an open mind,” he explains of party All Jammies, No Whammies. The phrase originated organically from his Twitch chat. “We’ll play the coolest music that you’ve never heard, but we’re not too cool to play Taylor Swift or Titanium or Clarity. I think that’s the party rock in me.”

While he loves the rush of rocking a crowd, the admitted introvert and father of two explains there are still nights when it can be hard to leave his family to go to work. Just as his wife and children are winding down after a long week, he must leave the calm serenity of home, step into the dark chaos of a nightclub, and summon the energy to entertain a packed room of sweaty dancers. But he knows it’s for a greater purpose—and that purpose feels like it’s finally paying off.

“I feel that to try and do this full-time nowadays requires kind of a psychopath mentality,” he jokes. “Luckily, I have a very supportive family that went through the trenches with me to get to where I am now. But I see the vision, and I see a little bit of light, and I think the people around me do now, too.” C

I

THINK INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC IS THE MOST COMPASSIONATE FORM OF MUSIC, BECAUSE IT LISTENS TO WHAT YOU’RE FEELING INSTEAD OF TELLING YOU HOW TO FEEL.”

Yvette Young is not letting herself get pigeonholed as a guitarist and riff creator, not by her twohand tapping techniques or her dense, polyphonic voicing that launched her to fame.

As a teen, Yvette Young dreamed of being in a band. But while studying performing arts education and fine arts at UCLA, she dreamed of showcasing work in a gallery. During the day, Yvette taught afterschool art classes in Cupertino and Sunnyvale, and for a short while even did tattoos.

Ironically, art school taught her to break the rules. During peer critiques, she and her classmates trained to stand in front of the class and explain the choices in their paintings. “I learned that nobody can argue with ‘because I wanted to,’ ” she says. “There’s so many resources out there telling you the right way to do something, but at the end of the day, it’s okay to do something you want to do because you want to.”

facing. In her childhood, on top of achieving perfect grades at school, she prepped for piano competitions up to four hours a day— unsupervised. No sleepovers, and no shows. Thankfully, there was MySpace, and Yvette found local bands online. She snuck out to shows and made friends there. But at sixteen, buckling under the intense pressure to compete, Yvette developed an eating disorder and got pulled out of school.

Written by Esther Young

Eventually, this would guide her through the darkest tunnels in the music industry. But first, she fortified others as they asserted their own voices. As a portfolio coach helping high schoolers apply to art school, she often found herself asking them: “Cool, I know your mom wants you to go to Stanford, but what do you want to do? It’s not your mom’s life, it’s yours.”

Yvette understood the battles they were

While in the hospital, her parents bought her a guitar. “I’m so thankful to them for that,” she says. Though her upbringing was relentlessly driven by her parents’ dream to raise a classical prodigy, Yvette appreciates that her parents introduced her to different forms of art. “I think the best thing you can do is to expose your kid to a lot of different art forms, and then teach them that they are autonomous,” she shares.

As Yvette taught herself to play acoustic guitar, her own music took shape—intricate and meditative, but also “angular and surprising.” She delighted in the way it amplified anything she felt. “Lyrics are good at telling you how to feel, right? It dictates the mood of the song in general,” she says. “But I think instrumental music is the most

“Icanworkbehindthescenes andactuallybecomeevenmore fulfilledartistically. ”

THE KEY TO STAYING AN ARTIST ISN’T CURATING WHO YOU ARE AND WHAT YOUR INTERESTS ARE TO WHAT PEOPLE EXPECT OF YOU. IT’S ACTUALLY SUPPOSED TO BE THE OPPOSITE.”

compassionate form of music. It listens to what you’re feeling instead of

She also wanted to subvert stereotypes. “I kind of detested the thought that people would hear my gender through my music.” At the time, witnessing a tendency for women to be written off as singers, Yvette didn’t want to be pocketed into a singer-songwriter genre like

In early 2014, Yvette released her first EP Acoustics. Still an art teacher living in San Jose, she started a band with friends—the first iteration of Covet. With her virtuosic style in the spotlight, Covet grew to prominence in the math rock scene. Two years later, they were on tour. But when one of her bandmate’s behavior became erratic, Yvette had to lean on her closest friends as she navigated the hostile work environment that Covet had become for her.

“I never thought that I would have to devote my energy to a legal battle. I was like, ‘Yo, I just wanna write music.’ ” While playing at Bonnaroo, in Tennessee, she had a breakdown backstage. When she looked up, she was surprised to hear clapping. “They were like, welcome, you’ve passed the rite of passage!” she recalls. Her peers in the guitar community assured her: “Everyone goes through this once in their career. Everyone gets deceived at some point…it’s just how the industry works, unfortunately.”

Yvette took about two years to extricate herself from the situation. Instead of trashing the project, she brought in a new drummer and bassist in 2022 and plans to continue touring with them. “Covet represents a little bit of my past where I still love it to death,” she says. “Guitar riffage? Hell yeah!”

But just as playing guitar for herself—all those years ago—led her to fall back in love with piano and violin, Yvette is following her curiosity towards her present interests. “The key to staying an artist isn’t curating who you are to what people expect of you,” she says.

“It’s actually supposed to be the opposite.”

Lately, Yvette’s been falling in love with music production—creating soundscapes with violin, trumpet, or cello. She’s interested in supporting a larger narrative, versus being the front person.

“I can work behind the scenes and actually become even more fulfilled artistically,” she says. Between long, lazy drives to her home in the mountains and joyful afternoons creating field recordings, “I’m just trying to figure out how I can stay home more, tour a little less, and just pursue what I actually find really fulfilling.” C

Chef Nicko Moulinos

Nicko Moulinos, executive chef at new American restaurant Eos & Nyx, isn’t one to get boxed in. With a menu that spans the globe, his restaurant’s fusion dishes hop borders with enthusiasm. Because, why limit yourself to just one kind of cuisine? “I take inspiration from everything,” Nicko says as he crosses heavily-inked forearms. “It could be an ingredient. It could be a technique. It could be a dish.” On any given night, you can spot Nicko hustling alongside the rest of his team in the restaurant’s open kitchen. Look for the man with the immaculate beard and man bun, a bandana tied around his forehead karate-kid style.

Written by Johanna Harlow

Curious about the driving force behind this chef’s fluid and flexible approach to culinary creativity? You’ll find answers in his personal journey. After growing up on Corfu, Nicko worked in kitchens preparing varying cuisines, including Le Bernardin (French), Kith/Kin (Afro-Caribbean), as well as Taverna and Dio Deka (Greek). Today, Eos & Nyx’s worldly menu finds inspiration from across the 22 countries bordering the Mediterranean as well as Mexican, Japanese, Vietnamese, and Korean cuisines to reflect the Bay Area’s diverse demographic. “Californian cuisine is almost like the Mediterranean,” notes Nicko. “It’s a big medley.”

One adjective you’ll never hear as a descriptor of Nicko’s cooking is “traditional”—and he’s just fine with that. “Traditional is very subjective,” Nicko holds. “You can have a local dish called pastitsio, which is the Greek version of lasagna, and they’ll tell you when you go to the islands that it’s made with bucatini.

Then you go to the mainland, and they tell you it’s made with penne rigate. And they’re going to argue. Guys, it’s the same thing. You’re just changing the pasta.” You won’t find Nicko sweating that small stuff. “We’re honoring those traditions. We use them as inspiration, we use them as guidelines, and then we build on that.”

This by no means implies that Nicko doesn’t appreciate culture. “Being in the melting pot is great because you can get inspired by so many different things—but growing up somewhere where everybody’s kind of the same and you feel that you can fit also has its charm,” he says with evident nostalgia. Back on Corfu, “Everybody knows your father, right? And if you tried to be a scoundrel, he’s going to find out.”

But back to the dining room. Like its chef, the menu at Eos & Nyx makes bold moves. Take Nicko’s crispy fried Brussels sprouts with smoked bacon, capers, and pickled onions, tossed with chili honey and bacon jam. “Pork goes with everything. I don’t care what you say,” Nicko declares. Each ingredient is packed with flavor, and balances the dish’s other components through contrasts. “Like a rollercoaster,” the chef describes.

Another standout veggie dish is the “everything” carrots. “I wanted to pay tribute to the philosophy of nose-to-tail [eating]. So we’re doing root-to-stem,” he explains. Roasted carrot chunks and raw carrot shavings are accompanied with a carrot crumble made from dehydrated peels, carrot oil and a ginger carrot puree. “If they grow together, it goes together,” Nicko says. You’ll also find plenty of handmade noodles, ranging from rigatoni to tagliatelle. “Unfortunately, I didn’t have a nonna that would make fresh pasta. But once I was taught the proper ways of pasta and how pasta should be treated, it’s very hard to go back.”

While 80 percent of Eos & Nyx’s ingredients are sourced from California (like rockfish from Half Moon Bay and honeycomb from Salinas), the rest come from around the world. That means octopus from Spain and Portugal, dorade from Greece, king salmon from New Zealand, and bluefin from Osaka. “Our food is built in such a way that less is more,” Nicko insists. “We’re not trying to hide behind sauces and foo foo garnishes.”

Eos & Nyx, named after the Greek goddesses of day and night, also welcomes the morning crowd. “The brunch menu is the younger brother that’s a little more of a rascal. And the dinner menu is the older brother that’s a little more sophisticated,” Nicko describes. His lighthearted side shines in the brunch offerings. “It’s all about puns,” he says, calling out items like Friends with Benedicts and Another One Bites the Crust.

As Nicko prepares to dive back into the fray of the kitchen, he takes a final moment to survey the full dining room with a satisfied smile. “When I met with ownership, this was literally two by fours and concrete—nothing else in here.” Not so now. The space, bathed in an amber glow, is a masterpiece of natural elements—plants twining through the light fixtures, indoor trees stationed at the center of the room. Ferns and beds of river rocks border the booth seats, evoking elevated park benches. If tonight is anything to go by, Eos & Nyx is sure to flourish for years to come—with plenty of plates of lobster tagliatelle, lamb chops, and loukoumades along the way. C

CONTRIBUTORS

The production of CONTENT MAGAZINE would not be possible without the talented writers, editors, graphic artists, and photographers who contribute to each issue. We thank you and are proud to provide a publication to display your work. We are also thankful for the sponsors and readers who have supported this magazine through sponsorships and memberships.

Be a part of the CONTENT community.

Contact us at: editor@content-magazine.com

GRACE OLIVIERI

Grace has been editing for over 15 years, and has worked on everything from student essays to novels. Her favorite genre is fantasy, and her least favorite is horror.

Instagram: mydeardoily

COVER ART

Amalgamation, ballpoint pen and ink on paper on wood panel, 48” x 36”, 2024 by Hana Lock. Interview on page 34.

YVONNE PHAN

Yvonne is a writer and researcher interested in helping people understand public policy and social science. She is also a fashion editor for Asterisk Magazine

LinkedIn: yvonne-phan

JOSHUA HASCALL

Joshua is an artist, journalist, and fourthgeneration Californian based in downtown San Jose. Described as a modern-day polymath, he captures the world as he sees it through painting, photography, filmmaking, and writing.

Instagram: hscl.art

SAMANTHA HULL

Samantha is a writer and editor based in Silicon Valley. She is a fervent believer that creatives are the backbone of a healthy society. It is her mission to tell artists’ stories.

LinkedIn: samantha-hull-art

TAYLOR DUBOSE

Taylor is a multidisciplinary visual artist with a knack for midcentury flair and surreal illustration, riding the line between familiar and uncanny. Raised by the arts and enamored with film, he possesses a love for still images and moving pictures that has no end.

Instagram: taylorduboseart

ARIANA SIGUENZA

Ariana is a conceptual and commercial portrait photographer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She specializes in bringing meaningful portraits to life through the conscious use of color and movement.

Instagram: asiguenza.photo

JESSE GARCIA

Jesse is a graphic and web designer based in San Jose. He loves the interactivity of web design—but also loves the creative freedom that comes with print.

Instagram: jessesgdesigns

june

EL ARBOLITO

June 6 - August 10, 2025